


A Father’s Love

by Charlie9646



Series: Life As We Know It [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Epilogue What Epilogue, F/M, Gay Male Character, Harry Potter Next Generation, M/M, Marriage, Medication, Mental Illness, Mind Healer, PTSD, Severus Snape Lives, Thoughts on former child abuse and neglect, Wedding, Wizarding world unkind to LGBT folks, all of age, mentions of mpreg but no mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-01 11:21:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20814302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: Severus Snape and Hermione Granger are happily together. Life isn’t prefect, but what is? Their daughter Rose is getting married, while their son Alan watches in envy. The wizarding world isn’t kind to those who do no conform to their rules.But thankfully Rose is not one to stand by and watch injustice happen. Her mother taught her better than that.





	A Father’s Love

Severus Tobias Snape did not have a good father, Tobias had been more brute than man. It was not God Rest His Soul, it was Drag The Bastard To Hell. Severus was not one now to blame others for his actions, he and his mind healer had long since worked past that issue. As much as he tried, and most times was successful in not blaming the man who raised him for the person he was now and once had been. There were still times thoughts slipped through.

If Tobias had been less like himself and more like Arthur Weasley, his son would have never become a death eater. The man raised Severus to believe you were one of two things the one being kicked or the kicker. James Potter Sr and Sirius Black did not help matters when it came to this fact. They were not at fault for his choices, and for that matter neither was his father, but the thought process that made those choices was directly due to the abuse and neglect of his childhood, and the bullying he suffered at Hogwarts.

He was in his sixties now, hadn't been a Hogwarts student since the seventies, and yet he still remembers what it felt like to be held upside down half-naked for his fellow students to see. He still remembers what it was like to have his own father lash out him because someone laughed at him at the bar. 

He still remembers what it felt like to be afraid of what someone else may do to you. And no matter how much therapy he had, no matter how many potions he took a day to manage his depression, nightmares, and general anxiety that was not going to change. Not now and not ever. 

Never once in all his years as a parent or partner had he ever raised his hand to either his children or Hermione. And that never was going to change. He would feel a thousand crucio curses before he would ever do such a thing. He had been a horrid teacher. The worst kind. He had been a cruel man. A vile man. A horrible person. The kind students talked about in hushed whispers for fear the evil professor would hear them, saying mean things about him.

In some ways, it had been to protect himself, in others to protect Harry Potter, but the very idea of laying a hand on someone who was not trying to harm him made him sick. 

He would never be able to forgive himself for the fact he was the reason George Weasley only had one ear. No matter how many times his former students thanked him for keeping them safe. No matter how many times people said the past was the past, he would be sickened by the actions he had taken in those eighteen years he had been a Hogwarts professor and then headmaster.

And that is what made him a good man, because he could see the wrong he had done and regretted it. The problem was he tended to turn those thoughts of how horrible he had been on himself. 

But, he was better than the man who raised him, he was by far not a perfect man, but he never was going to look into the mirror and question to himself why he was acting like one Tobias Snape. Not ever. 

Severus sighed thoughts were cropping up again. The self-hating ones that had troubled him since childhood he needed to talk to his mind healer about trying a different potion or raising one of the doses or more of the medications he was already on. He did not deserve to think like this. Hermione didn't deserve him to be like this, and neither did their children.

**************

Rose Eileen was picking out wedding robes or a dress she had yet to decide which she preferred. But, her brown eyes sparkled as she did so. This was a happy day. She was twenty years old now and marrying the man of her dreams, James Sirius Potter. She was going to be Mrs. Potter.

For a while, she had strongly considered taking the same stance as her parents, refusing to marry unless her brother could. Alan had begged her to do no such thing. Pleaded to her saying ”the law was likely never to be changed and you deserve to be happy, you deserve to have this with the man of your dreams even if I can not.”

What had caused her to give in was when his black eyes started to fill with tears and he cried out ”you should not be punished by their choices, but their stupid rulings! I am punished enough for both of us! Mum and dad, for them it's just a silly piece of paper, for you it's far more than that. Because it is just a piece of paper to them I don't mind them doing this! You I mind, so please I beg you Rose stop listening to your mind and start listening to your heart.”

Listening to your heart instead of your mind was not the easiest task for the daughter of Hermione Jean Granger. But, she was also Severus’s daughter and as much as he would not dare admit it he was led by his emotions and had always been. He just hid his feelings behind harsh words and snarky remarks. 

He had gotten better with time on that issue. At work, he still sometimes gave someone something that might be akin to a verbal assault, but that was quite rare, and the person usually deserved it. Rose sighed she wish she could wave her wand and find what she should choose. But magic did not work like that.

It was then that she saw it. So lovely that she never would find such a thing. It was timeless and beautiful. The long sleeves we're sheer, it was a ball gown, with a long train, lace and beadwork was minimal but beautiful. It reminded her of the photo she had seen of her great grandmother’s wedding dress, the last lady Prince. Her name had been Iris, and Rose desperately wished that she could have met her. But just as she could not meet her grandmother Eileen, she would never meet her great grandmother. 

But with this wedding dress, she felt a little closer to both of them. Rose was not the type to change her mind, the dress could magically be made to fit her, so she didn't even bother trying it out. With her mother by her side, she bought the wedding dress of her dreams. As her brother and father sat in a corner both with their nose shoved in books. They were two peas in a pod. She was more like Hermione, but then again not exactly, her mother was different than her. 

Her dad said once she was like the stories he had been told by Eileen about herself. Strong-willed, stubborn, friendly, and maybe a little lax with school. Add in her mother’s kindness, bravery, and heart of gold. 

*************

A scream tore from Hermione’s throat. Severus’s strong arm was locked around her waist, and he whispered into her curls “it’s not real Hermione, I promise it’s not real. Whatever it is it’s not real.”

She shivered as she started to wake up, she was safe in Severus’s arms. She was safe. She was in her forty-two with children who were in their twenties. It had been decades since Bellatrix Lestrange felt the need to carve ”mudblood” into her arm. It was not real.

Severus kissed her wild curls and then retrieved the potion that would help her get back to sleep. She sat up in bed and allowed him to tip the open vial into her mouth. He sat it aside on his nightstand to be dealt with tomorrow or even today depending on the exact time it was.

As the potion began to kick in, he pulled her close to him, she laid her head on his chest and the sound of his out of tune humming caused her to drift off into sleep.

Severus had no need to ask her what the nightmare was about. He for years had tried everything to remove that scar that marred her beautiful pale skin. It seems the only female death eater had a knife cursed with dark magic. Of course, she would, that was the type of person Bellatrix had been. 

Sirius Black had tried to desperately contain the madness that plagued the Black family, while Bellatrix Lestrange had given into it.

Severus watched the love of his life sleep, he looked at the little crow’s feet next to her eyes, her stomach had stretch marks from bringing their children into the world. The grey hairs that now we're in her curls. He thought about her various scars, the softness of her thighs, that he lived to be nestled in between. Some people claimed women lost their beauty as they aged, Severus disagreed Hermione only gotten more beautiful with each passing year.

**************

Severus was at dinner with his daughter, just the two of them, he tried to have dinners like this with each of his children separately once they left Hogwarts. Hermione did similar things. Sometimes they had them just as a core family and other time boyfriends were invited.

It a quiet cafe, she was talking about the wedding and her plans. Rose asked him ”Do think your grandmother, my great grandmother would like me?”

That question came out of nowhere and it shocked him. His children knew about his past, there was no hiding it. If he wouldn't have told them, someone else would have. When they were young he told them dad made a bad decision, joined a group of bad people, did bad things, and then joined the light and was a spy for it. That he did his very best to make up for his mistakes. As they grew older he told them more honest accounts of the events, as did Hermione, Harry, Ginny, and Draco.

He also told them when they were teenagers a non-graphically sexual version of their love story, and how non traditional it was. His children we're shocked he lived for five years without the use of a wand. His answer was he thought it was unsafe to buy another, and that he did grow up muggle.

Severus did not know how to go about answering his daughter’s question. But he just started saying things he hoped would make sense. ”Rose, I hope she would accept you, love you, see the wonderful woman you have become. But, her and your great grandfather wanted nothing to do with me. My mother got a pretty bad beating when I was six from Tobias, so she apparated us to their manor home. It was the only time I met my grandparents. Standing there, my mother bleeding from a cut on her cheek. And the people I held in such a wonderful place in my mind? Healed our wounds and told her she was still disowned and I was a Mudblood.” 

Rose’s brown eyes flared, she nearly looked like she was going to snarl. Gryffindors and their need to fight injustice even if it was almost a half-century ago. ”Then I want to get rid of my wedding dress, dad, it reminded me of Iris Prince’s”.

Severus patted her hand across the table and said ”listen to a story about your grandmother before you do so.”

Rose said ”okay, but unless this really changes my mind I am giving it away and buying something else.” She was solid in her belief of what right and wrong, but he was sure a true story about who her grandmother, the woman she was partly named after would fix that. 

Severus started to speak ”your grandmother too was in love with her mother’s wedding dress, it was her dream to get married in it. She accidentally got pregnant with me, and Tobias was a muggle, so her father disowned her. But I think what was worse to her was she was not allowed to have her mother’s wedding dress. Her solution was not unlike what I would expect yours or your mother to be on her way out of the house she shrunk it and stuffed it into her bag. She may have been marrying a man she did not love, she may have been five months pregnant with me, but she was going to have the wedding dress of her dreams. It reminded her through her struggles of the world she came from, the life she once had. Just as her old school things did. She was able to tell me stories about the magical world because of those things.”

She smiled at him and said happily ”can I wear grandmother’s wedding dress instead? I am sure she must have hid it, somewhere in the house on Spinners end.”

All he was doing this dinner was breaking his daughter’s heart over and over again, but she couldn't hide from her family history any more than he could. ”Rose, Tobias burned it after one of their fights, I am sorry there is no undoing that. Believe me, I tried.”

She tries to comfort her father, ”I sorry that I am asking all these questions dad. I know I shouldn't”.

He looked at her and said ”no, Rose, you should, it's your family just as much as it's mine.”

She asked,” whatever happened to Tobias you never told us.”

He says plainly ”your mother knows and I should tell your brother after telling this to you, but after mum died of accident at her job, he drank himself to death. Liver cancer.”

She said ”good, that's exactly what he deserved to die all alone, by functionally his own hand.” Her brown eyes rather dangerous. Maybe his daughter did have a bit of Slytherin in her after all. His wife had said about the story that he got what he deserved, but it was still sad, that he never saw the error of his ways.

When Severus later told Alan about what happened to his parents all he said was ”that's horrid that Eileen didn't ever find happiness, and I shouldn't say this, but I think she should have killed Tobias”.

All Severus could say was ”Indeed, I wished she would of killed him, poisoned him, even got him put away in prison for all of my childhood and teenage years. But, let's go work on that potion, that is a far more important thing than speaking of the dead.”

His daughter could see that dying alone was a punishment for a man who could barely take care of himself, but his son was far more like himself, the kind of person who wanted something to be done about the pain someone had caused. They were quite different trains of thought, and they both were valid.

Hermione’s answer about his father was far more blunt, harsh and showed who she was ”may the bastard burn in hell, wish I could have sent him there myself.”

And it also showed the love she had for Severus. 

**************

Rose’s wild hair was mostly tamed or as much as it could be. Her brown eyes were bright, this was a happy day, and nothing was going to change that. Her mother, Alice Longbottom, Ginny, and Lily Luna helped her dress. She insisted that one of the people to stand up with her be her brother Alan, he was her best friend, after all. 

Her bride’s maids we're Lily and Alice, her brother much to his pleasure would be dressed the same as James’s groomsmen. 

Her mother took off her bracelet, it was a simple silver chain and said ”your father gave this to me when we first got together, I know it's not much, but I want you to borrow it for your wedding.” 

Ross held out her wrist for her mother to put it on and said ”thank you, mum, I know how much this means to you.”

Hermione smiled and said ”your father knows I have never been big on jewelry, it's just not my thing. But he said the day he gave this to me to wear it because when he's not around it will remind me of our love. And sweetheart it has done just that”.

There was a knock on the door, and Severus asked: ”everyone dressed?”

Rose said,” yes dad, you can come in.”

Severus Snape stepped into the room his long half silver half black hair was tied back out of his face, he wore black dress robes with a green trim, they had been picked out by Hermione with the help of Narcissa. She had no idea what proper male wizarding dress robes we're supposed to look like, and neither did Sev for that matter. 

”Rose”, he said tentatively ”I have something old that I want to give you, I have been hanging onto it for this very day. It was my mother’s and there is no one in the world I want to have this more than you.”

”Not even mum?” she asked.

”Your mother actually told me to hold onto this for you, Rose, back when you were just a baby,” said Severus tears were not falling, but he was quite close. He pulled out a small velvet box and handed it to Rose. Inside was a small heart-shaped locket, it had the Prince seal on the back of it, and the front was decorated with flowers.

”Rose, see now why your mother wanted you to have it?” he asked her. 

”Yes”, she said as she threw her arms around her father. Rose did not inherit his emotional control and she started to cry tears of joy, but also sadness for the fact she was never going to meet the woman whose name she shared, her grandmother, the woman who once wore this necklace. 

Severus spoke to her quietly ”Rosie my mother would have wanted you to have this, she treasured it more than just about anything. Now I can put it only you if you would like?” he took a deep breath he would not cry today, not with all of these people around.

She nodded and he clasped the locket around her neck. 

Later as he walked her down the aisle he could not keep the tears back, he cried silently, but they were tears of joy, tears of love, tears of the fact he was a proud father. When they reached the end he smiled. James Sirius Potter was far from that boy who said nasty things to Slytherins and people he had deemed less than. 

James had become a man who Severus was going to be proud to call his son in law. He was an Aurror, he volunteered in the organization Rose created to help Squibs, he was also an activist to try to push LGBT rights within the wizarding and offered to do it when he and his fiancee were on break. He was friends with Al, Alan and even Scorpius. He played in an amateur Quidditch league. And when someone tried to bring the Nott boy on charges of stealing simply because his grandfather was a death eater? He defended him.

Severus’s thoughts were rambling and jumbled he was rarely this emotional. He placed Rose’s hand into James’s hugged her and then went to sit next to Hermione. She took his hand into hers and leaned her head on his shoulder. She whispered softly to him ”we raised two amazing children, Sev, while it may be a sad thing to watch her grow up, it means we did right by her.”

He whispered to her ”these are happy tears, my love, happy tears. I am proud to call her my daughter.”

Rose and James said their vows to each other, then kissed, Alan rolled his eyes at the sight of James tripping over his own two feet as they started to walk out of the church. 

*************

Rose tapped her wine glass to get people’s attention. She rested against a table, her shoes had long since been kicked off, her hair was chaotic curls, from how much she had danced, laughed and how many times over the night James had tangled into it. 

”Listen up”, she said. People quieted and turned to face her, the night was starting to settle down. ”I was able to marry my now-husband James with relative ease. If we would have wanted to marry straight out of Hogwarts, we could of, but my brother, Alan is not able to do the same. My brother has been with Scorpius since he was thirteen years old.” She looked over at her brother and Scorpius who were holding hands.

She shut her eyes and continued “the wizarding world has deemed the love that I have for James is considered proper and right by the wizarding world, their is no difference between two men loving each other, or two women compared to a man and woman. No difference. You must wonder why I am saying this on my wedding day. Of all days, it’s because the Ministry will not listen to anything else. I am hopeful that everyone hear what I am saying and help me to bring about change, true change. So maybe when it’s all said and done I can celebrate my little brother getting married.”

Alan walks over to Rose throwing his arms around her, he towers over her, the only thing that would tell they are related is their pale skin, the skin they inherited from their father, and grandmother before him. He whispers to her “your only ten minutes older Rosie”.

She laughs “says the younger one, to me ten minutes feel like a year sometimes” she sticks her tongue out at him. 

Their parents and Scorpius walked over to them. James Sirius just can’t help but smile at the love of his life. Scorpius leans into Alan, Hermione hugs Rose, and Severus smiles a real true smile.

Harry, Al, Ginny, and Lily join them. Harry looks at Severus and says “you know for a second I thought that was Hermione speaking, though she sounds a little bit too much like you.”

“She’s more like her mother than me,” said Severus. Then he sighs loudly “you know people tell me that daughters tend to be like their mothers, in our daughters' case that’s not a bad thing”. He says mostly to Hermione, but the others gather around as well.

Hermione says plainly “Severus the same is said about fathers and sons. And I do believe that’s a good thing as well.”

Severus sighs and kisses Hermione’s wild hair. He wraps his arms around her, and she kisses his neck. Directly on the scars that mar his neck. No one asks when Severus and Hermione are going to get married. The answer was unspoken, but rang true, when Alan can marry we will.

****************

Severus finished the potion he had been working on for years, the one that would allow his son to have a biological child with the man he loved. He bottled it, he had tested it on various animals, and he felt like it was finished he would submit it to the potion’s guild he now was mostly a member in name only, they would find human test subjects now they knew it wasn't going to actually kill anyone.

If you would have asked him as a child, what a father’s love was he would have said no such thing existed. As a teenager, he would have pointed at Mr. Evans Lily’s father. At nineteen and green he would have said the Dark Lord. When Dumbledore defended him after the first wizarding world, he would have said the closest thing he had to a father was the old wizard.

When he asked Dumbledore ”what of my soul?” he would have said there was no such thing the love of a mother was far more powerful. The love of Eileen for him, the love of Lily for Harry, but also the love that made Narcissa Malfoy go against the dark lord himself.

When he was hiding from the magical world he would have said Dumbledore, James Potter, and Lucius Malfoy.

When he found out Hermione was pregnant with his children he would have said a father’s love is fear. Fear of doing the wrong thing.

When he held his children for the first time the answer was willing to die and even kill for them. 

When he sent them off to Hogwarts he would have said it was the longing to wanting to have them with you, so you could keep then safe.

When James Sirius said those horrible things about his children he wanted to pick the boy off the ground and chuck him across the platform, he wanted to rip him to shreds. Instead, he just threatened the boy with the idea of him teaching again. No need for bodily harm, just a few scary threats, and the boy was as a mouse. Sometimes being a father was controlling yourself. 

He was proud now to be the father in law to the wild boy who was now a good man.

When his son came out as gay, it was simply loving them no matter who they were.

When they graduated a father’s love was letting them live their own lives. 

When he walked his daughter down the aisle it was pride in the people they had become.

And now with this potion in his hands, he knew the true answer a father’s love was everything he felt about his children. It was fear, worry, pride, joy, understanding, listening, caring for them, giving in, standing firm, it was kisses goodnight, bandaging scraped knees, it was helping her buy the dress she liked, it was teaching his son potion’s, it was days at the river, it was wedding bells, and so much more. It was knowing he would die for his children, or even kill for them. A father’s love was being a father. And Severus Tobias Snape did not need a good father to understand that, just men in his life who were good fathers and doing what his heart told him to do. 

When his wife told him the news that their new law had passed, their son could get married? He looked forward to the chance to be a grandfather, watching his son become a father one day and maybe one day soon.

When he got the fire call from Rose telling him that she was pregnant he cried tears of joy, he was going to be a grandfather before the end of the year, he was going to learn with time how to be a grandfather. And Hermione said,” you will be just as good of a grandpa as you have been a dad”. 

She brushed his sliver and black hair out of his face. He tangled his hands into her streaked with grey curls, and Severus did something he had been doing for decades, but seemed just ever so slightly different now, he took his future wife to bed and made love to her. 

When they finished he asked her ”you will marry me now, right?”

She smiled at him as she curled tighter in his side and said:” yes, of course, Severus, I want nothing more than to be your wife, to be Mrs. Snape.”

And he said,”I love you more than life itself Hermione Jean Granger soon to be Snape”.

She said before kissing him as she crawled back on top of him ”and I love you, Severus Tobias Snape. You are the love of my life, father of my children, and the person who knows me best in this world.”

He could not get a word in, but he thought to himself and all the same to you Hermione, mother of my children, love of my life, and my closest friend.


End file.
